Identifying a temporal threshold of tolerance for silent gaps after requests

Abstract

This study addresses whether there is a threshold, some particular length of silent gap between two speakers' turns, at which negative social attributions emerge. The effect of such inter-turn silence was tested by constructing dialogues where responses to requests were identical and affirmative so that study participants' (n = 380) ratings about “willingness” would be colored by lag time, not semantics. 100 ms intervals between 200 and 1200 ms were tested in a between groups design. There was a notable drop-off in ratings at 600 ms and a statistically significant difference in ratings between 700 and 800 ms.